I picked up some
Berryman's Chem-Dip from Wal-Mart this afternoon and started cleaning the pistons. I
soaked piston #1 three or four times, 30 minutes each time, and the Berryman's did a
pretty remarkable job. Some of the really caked on carbon didn't come
off the dome and I'm not sure how to get that off without damaging
anything. I also need to get a ring groove cleaner.
I also cleaned off the remaining gasket from my valve covers and
attempted to get the rest of the gasket off the CFI intake (both the top
and bottom covers). I'm stumped on this one. I sprayed the left
over gasket material repeatedly with CRC Gasket Remover over the course of an
hour and the gasket pieces would simply not come off. If anyone has any
tricks for this, I'm open to suggestions. I've read about gasket discs
but I've also read those can easily take off material so I'm not
anxious to go out and get one. My big concern is not damaging the
aluminum.
Speaking of damaged aluminum -- while looking over the intake, I noticed
a pretty decent sized pit just below one of the ports. See the
attached picture. The factory castings are lousy so I am not sure if
this is simply a casting flaw or if something else happened.
